Monday, October 20, 2014

London!

So I am back from London where I have probably eaten some of the best food I have ever had, and that's saying something!

Below will follow a lot of pictures in random order with small descriptions of what it is and where I had it!

First off. Dessert I made at home. Sliced banana with peanut butter between slices and then dipped in chocolate... Easy and not to unhealthy and fucking delicious!

And then London!

Started with American food at Bodeans BBQ near tower of London.
Coleslaw, fries, chipotle mayo, babyback ribs and some burnt ends. Really moist and delicious!

Our first breakfast, took the hotel buffet breakfast. And of course I made my plate a full English breakfast! :D

Mondays evening meal we of course had to eat Indian. Which is suppose to be the best outside of India..

First we got in some plate with thin crispy bread and 3 types of chutney and some onion sallad to eat with. Was really delicious!

Then we got our entree. It was a mixed platter with some lamb sausages, fried onion, vegetarian samosas and chicken tandoori... After this we where already full...

And then came the main... This was my portion....
If we start from the left: Naan bread, Rice, Tandoori chicken, Chicken masala in butter sauce, Beef samosas, beef curry stew (can't remember the name, very tender though) and some yogurt with mint in the middle.

Happy guy!

This was probably my favorite meal during the entire trip. Never had food that tasted like this and it was just right in the spices and everything was so tender and good. The place was called Aladdin and was located on Brick Lane, a lot of Indian places there, shops and the likes. A real Indian quarter.

Second day we went to China Town and of course ate Chinese!

Entree. Spring rolls, friend chicken, fried shrimp and some friend and seed encrusted bread. Very tasty and the sea weed in the middle was also fried and super crispy. My favorite on this plate!

For my main I went with crispy beef with chili. Was not very spicy but the tastes where right there and the crisp of the beef really gave the dish a nice texture.

My breakfast for the rest of the week... On our way to the office we stopped by different places each day and I always had their porridge with granola/berries/müsli and such. They make good porridge over there!

Wednesday we whent to the "Hopp and Grapes" for some pub grub...

Our small sharing platter... Sausage, bread, chili jam, olives, calamari, bread, creme fraiche and in the top left brie fondue...
Was full after this and the sausage and the brie was particularly good!

And then I had the mushroom and chicken pie...

The puff pastry on top was really flaky and perfekt and the sauce inside really tasted of mushrooms while the chicken was tender and juicy... I want more PIE!

Thursday was street food day! They had a small square near the hotel with street food carts serving: Buffalo wings, friend chicken, Italian sandwiches, peruvian food and pulled pork/brisket..

I of course went for the friend chicken sandwich with chipotle mayo, lettuce, pan fried jalapeno and some mustard.
Was delicious!
And my side was peas and sweet potato chili kind of...

Friday was our "going out night" and I had booked a table at "The old red cow"

Never had a scotch egg before but I had seen it on TV many times... Was hoping it would be gooey in the middle...

FUCKING SUCCESS! Tasted really good and it was perfectly cooked on the inside!

My main: Burger with bone marrow, cheese, lettuce and bacon and homemade sauce on a brioche bun. Was probably one of the best burgers I have ever had..

Saturday. Time to go home...

But first Borough Market!

So many good food to buy with me, cheese, bread, sausages, honey, cookies, spices, mustards and everything else you could imagine....

And so many street vendors selling food... Went for the double Boston burger with blue cheese and fried onions.. they skimped a bit on the cheese though. Still very good and the patties were made out of sausage meet, still tasty!

Wow I really ate a lot... Went for a few runs as well and managed to take this nice picture in Queen Victoria park (I think it was) one morning..

I used this recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/chocolate-lava-cakes.html

But took less sugar and butter. I would have taken even less sugar and added more dark chocolate I think.. But this was delicious and it came out so fucking perfect! So moist, so lavay and so delicious!

I mean look at that lava!

When we cut into it and the lava just poured out.. I was so happy and proud!

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Day 5 (Wednesday cont)

We ate at a place called Eataly(Funny name!) during the evening that sold top of the line cheese, bread, wine, pesto, marmalade, pasta and much much more.

I was like a child in a candy shop and I ended up buying a lot of stuff but for dinner at the same place. I had the mixed seafood platter. Squid, shrimp and some other fish that the guys couldn't translate to English and some cucumber with pesto and a mustard reduction. Was really good even though the squid as a bit rubbery unfortunately...

Day 6 (Thursday)

My last night in Italy and the guys where going out to say good bye to a guy moving to Sweden for work. They were nice enough to invite me along. And a magical night followed...

We sat down at wine place called "Taggiöu" and how it works at a wine bar is that you order wine and then small plates with delicacies get delivered to your table without you ordering them! There isn't even a menu for these things and they are free or included in the wine price.. We payed 20 euro for a nice bottle of wine and got some bread and first a platter of cheese, mortadella, salami and some other charcuteries. All of which were very tasty and fit well with the wine.

Then as we were getting ready to leave we got this platter of bread with some coleslaw with shrimp on...

So we finished that fast and were going to leave again because we were 10 minutes late for our dinner appointment with the other guys, when this platter showed up. So we had to finish that as well... Oh well!

Finally we got there and sat down and the entire crew for the night was assembled!

Igor my co-worker was taking the picture and Marco to the far left is my other colleague that was taking great care of me this week.

First dish! We got two of these plates and 6 small plates and we divided the food up equally.

From the top of the platter, we got some cow stomach and other tings layered into a paté, fries, zucchini with cheese, some pie with stracciatella cheese, potatoes and some fish with small bones (not good with fish sorry!)

Second course! We got 3 kinds of pasta and 2 of each platter.

We got spaghetti with pesto, and ravioli filled with spinach with sauce and some other pasta with meat sauce.

And of course as a guest I didn't get to put food on my own plate, Igor fixed my plate with his own utensils! Love how they approach food here, everyone shares and has lots of fun!

And of course Parmesan on top. These were all really really tasty and kind of light with really punchy awesome flavors!

Third round!

Starting from left: Aubergines, Cod and then squid.

Nothing of these where really special but apparently they eat a lot of cod here, and it was nice but nothing special... :)

Pumpkin pie with fries! They got this for me because I said I love pumpkin and it was really really nice, even though I didn't understand the fries to the pie...

Even more cod, boiled with potatoes. Really nice cod flavor to this one, very clean and rustic.

Dessert!

Some heavy smooth cream poured over some sponge cake infused with a lot, a lot of rum. I loved this dessert even though some more cream would have been nice to complement the strong rum flavor. I would liked to have eaten many of these! :)

Day 7 (Friday)

Few photos of the breakfast buffet.

First the cake table.. This was like this every day.. 9! 9 different things!

And they changed 3-4 every day... No wonder I got fat..

And then the yogurt part.. So many things to put on the yogurt, so many tasty dried fruits.